| We've teamed up with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to support homelessness charity Llamau's 13-week employability programme. Yesterday, we hosted a group of young people that are currently undertaking the programme. During their visit, the cohort heard from a number of apprentices, both from the ONS and the IPO and took part in some census testing. Scott Howell, our Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, said: "We were delighted to meet with the Llamau group as part of their employability programme. We pride ourselves on always supporting the local community in which we are based." Economy UK Government investment as a share of GDP was below the OECD average between 1997 and 2015, according to new analysis of OECD figures published today by ONS. In 2015, UK government investment equalled 2.6% of GDP, compared with an OECD average of 3.6%.
UK government investment as a share of GDP was the third lowest in the G7 in 2015, with Germany (2.1% of GDP) at the bottom.
UK Non-government investment was also lower than the OECD average, although further analysis suggests countries with a smaller manufacturing sector often have lower levels of non-government investment. UK non-government investment equalled 14.0% of GDP in 2015, compared with 17.9% across the OECD as a whole.
In 2015 non-government investment in the UK was the lowest in the G7 as a share of GDP, with Canada at the top. However, UK non-government investment has grown more strongly than in other G7 countries in recent years, increasing from 12.0% of GDP in 2009 to 14.0% in 2015. For those who've seen our shout-outs for people to take part in research over the last few years, you'll be aware we've been building a panel of volunteers to participate in user research for the website for quite some time now. We're always looking to reach new users and grow our panel. Why are we doing this? The best-placed people to help us improve the website and our products are our users. Without your help, we can't make things better or design new features in a way that works for you. We have an ongoing programme of research planned, not just for new ways of disseminating data, but also to improve current products and outputs. How much of your time will this take? Signing up to join our panel commits you to nothing, you can do as little or as much as you want. Any contact we make with you will be via email, so we'll send you a link to any research we are running. Most of our research will be online surveys or tasks we may ask you to try and complete. We also carry out regular usability testing across the UK, so will email you if you live in the nearby area. What's the benefit of getting involved? Take our current customise my data project, we've carried out a lot of research around this – so far around 1,600 people have helped us get to where we are now. We've changed much on our journey, all as a result of what we've learnt from users along the way – things like adding a preview of your data selections, merging search and browse options and the move to nested geography lists. Can I see what you're doing? We're open about everything we do, we regularly post on the Digital Publishing blog. Who can get involved? Everybody – no matter how much or little you use our site, every bit of feedback and learning is valuable, so working across all user types is something we're really keen to do. It doesn't matter where you are or what you do – everybody is welcome. If you have any queries about this survey please email userinsight@ons.gov.uk and we will get back to you as soon as possible. | 
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